Penned in Memory
by Star Charter
Summary: "I keep a journal for the little moments. Little memories, lost in time, like tears in the rain," I said. Yusuke stared before rolling his eyes and muttering, "Can you cool it with the dramatic movie references for once?" [2019 daily prompt challenge. Set in the "Lucky Child" continuity. Spoilers through "Lucky Child" chapter 87.]
1. Ring

_Set during chapter 87 as Keiko enjoys her dessert on the seaside patio of Hotel Kubikukuri after her conversation with the Beautiful Suzuka_.

* * *

**Day 01: "Ring"**

* * *

The only thing that sparkled more brightly than the crystal blue ocean under the midafternoon sun was the gigantic, goose-egg emerald set in the platinum ring of the woman at the table next to mine.

It was princess cut, I think. Either that or cushion cut. I couldn't quite tell despite the fact that the ring could probably be seen from outer space. The woman wearing it sat a few tables away, laughing as she twirled a fork between her fingers and batted her eyelashes at the man in the suit sitting across from her. Her eyelashes were too big to be real, the inverse of her emerald that was too big to be fake. Occasionally a facet of the overlarge jewel would catch the light with a green sunburst that dazzled the eye and seared the retinas.

A huge ring. A huge jewel, one worn by a woman who was no doubt rich. And her companion's suit looked tailored to perfection, an understated but no doubt expensive match for that awful, gaudy ring.

I hunched over my crème brulee and stabbed it with a fork, caramelized crust breaking with a snap.

No matter how pretty and well-appointed the humans here were, I reminded myself, the only reason they had come to this island was to watch demons die—and to bet on the times and places of their deaths. To revel in a bloodbath they had very little stake in.

That jewel didn't fool me one bit.

"Money can't buy class, as Grandmother would've said," I muttered, and I took another bite.

* * *

[263 words]

* * *

_NOTE:_

_It's that time of year again!_

_Last year I did a written version of Inktober, in which I wrote a drabble set in the _Lucky Child_ universe for every prompt on the Inktober list. I want to do that again this year, and this time I want to keep to my "one drabble every day" commitment I wasn't able to maintain in 2018. I finished the 2018 prompts eventually, but not in a month like I wanted. More's the pity._

_The main reason I want to do this is because I've fallen out of my daily writing habit (life has been… a lot lately), and doing a series of 200-500 word prompts for a month will both help me regain that habit AND put me back into the _Lucky Child_ universe for an extended period._

_Truth be told, taking this unexpected hiatus after years of consistent updates has partially severed my connection to LC. Coming back to the latest work-in-progress chapter feels like visiting a foreign country, so… baby steps of immersion to get re-acclimated, I guess. Updating _Daughters of Destiny _definitely helped._

_Anyway. Bear with me as I find the thread of _Lucky Child_ once again, and I hope you enjoy my 2019 Inktober foray and companion to last year's _Written in Ink_ drabble series, _Penned in Memory.


	2. Mindless

**Day 02: "Mindless" [800 words]**

* * *

My parents got me _Dragon Quest IV_ for my birthday, which meant I needed to steal back my Famicon from Yusuke "Thiefy McThiefPants" Urameshi—but that wasn't hard. I just waited until he needed to do laundry, offered to do it for him, and then took the console while he was busy gloating over how he'd made me do his chores for him.

What was harder was actually playing the game in peace. Yusuke realized the Famicon was missing pretty quickly, but I played dumb and managed to convince that I hadn't un-stolen it, that he'd merely misplaced it somewhere under the piles of crap in his apartment. But the ruse meant I could only play the game when I was sure he wasn't coming over, and whenever I heard him calling for me up the stairs, I was forced to rip the game out of the outlet and shove the console under my bed. Losing all my game data in the process, of course. Whomp whomp.

So when Hiei came over one rainy night and found me crosslegged on my bedroom floor playing my illicit RPG, I didn't have the heart to put the game away and do something he'd be more interested in. I just ignored him as he sat on my desk, gazing intently at the screen of my tiny TV set, trying my best to ignore him. Dragon Quest waits for no one!

Hiei was not impressed, of course. He sat on my desk in silence for a while, watching me watch the game, and eventually he tossed his hair with a derisive snort.

"Mindless human dreck," he declared.

I rolled my eyes and said nothing.

Hiei scowled. He shifted, arms crossing over his chest, and I had to wonder if the homework he was so brazenly sitting on would smell like a campfire in the morning (provided fire demon ass actually smelled like campfire, and I was pretty willing to bet it did).

"What, you don't agree?" he said when I didn't rise to his jibe. "You've been staring at that tiny screen for an hour."

"Could you pipe down?" I said, hunching a bit over the controller. "I'm about to face off against the Big Bad of this chapter and I only just unlocked kafrizz, so this is going to take some maneuvering."

"Kafrizz?"

"It's the most advanced version of the fire spell." I hunched some more, Quasimodo made flesh. "But I haven't unlocked multiheal yet and this monster hits hard, so…"

Hiei considered the TV with a frown. Eventually he waved a hand at it.

"You unlock _spells_ in this…?" he said.

"Game. It's a game."

"In what world could _that_ possibly be a game?"

With a sigh, I sat up straight and hit the 'pause' button.

"See this keypad?" I said, holding up the controller. I pointed at the screen. "See that little dude made of pixels?"

Hiei squinted at the screen, skepticism evident, but eventually he nodded.

"OK; watch." With exaggerated motions I mashed the buttons, making the sprite walk up, down, left and right. Hiei's eyes flickered back and forth from my hand to the screen; eventually understanding colored his expression, and I said, "You control him, move him through the digital world, and progress through a story."

Hiei frowned again. "A story?"

"Yeah." I continued navigating my character through the dungeon I'd been traversing, cursing as a random monster encounter initiated. "It's a game, because you can win or lose the fights you get into, but it's also a kind of story, and whether or not it has a good or bad ending is up to you and how well you can play."

"Does it take skill?" Hiei asked, no longer looking at me. He only had eyes for the television screen and the characters darting back and forth across it.

I explained the concept of video games for a little while longer. It wasn't hard for him to understand how they worked; he knew what a TV was, after all, and he knew that humans had advanced technology, so telling him that tiny blips of light could be arranged to form pictures that reacted to your commands and followed a programmed storyline wasn't all that difficult. Hiei absorbed the knowledge like a sponge, too, and his questions were all insightful, opening doors of explanation that gave him a pretty decent grasp of the concept of digital games by the time the night was through.

Not that he was impressed by his newfound knowledge. Eventually he turned up his nose, declared mastering video games to be a 'useless skill,' and pretended to look bored as I continued to move through the world of _Dragon Quest IV._

'Useless,' he called games that night.

But it didn't escape my notice that in the weeks to come, he seemed to always show up just in time to quietly watch me play, and he never said anything disparaging about them again.

* * *

_This is, I suppose, a reflection on my long-running theory that Hiei both knows more about AND is more curious than fandom thinks about human technology. Will he pick up a controller someday? Maybe not. But will he follow the plot of NQK's latest RPG? Maybe so._


	3. Bait

**Day 3: "Bait" [385 words]**

* * *

Takanaka-_sensei_ looked positively perplexed as he said, "How do you manage it, Yukimura?"

We stood just outside the gates of Sarayashiki Junior High, watching as Yusuke sauntered off down the sidewalk like a proud and pugnacious alley cat. The punk hadn't thought to wait for me when I'd stopped to tie my shoe—or perhaps he'd simply seen Takanaka coming from across the schoolyard and had booked it on ahead to avoid a lecture. Both were probable.

"How do you manage to get him to come to school?" Takanaka continued as I rose to my feet, shoe secured at last. "I've tried pleading, scolding, threatening… but you seem to have more luck." He didn't look at me, eyes still locked on Yusuke. "What's your secret?"

"You wanna catch a big fish, you need good bait," I said with a shrug.

"Hmm?" Takanaka's eyes widened. "Oh—"

Just then, Yusuke had reached into his jacket and pulled forth a sparkling jewel case—a CD case, to be specific, with a black cover emblazoned with electric yellow words underneath the plastic. He held the CD up over his head between two fingers, head turning so he could look back at me through one mocking eye, lips curled up in a conniving grin.

But then he spotted Takanaka, and the grin turned into a scowl. He shoved the CD back into his coat and hunched, slinking away faster down the sidewalk.

"For this week's uninterrupted attendance," I said, "the bait was the new Megallica album."

"So. Bribery," Takanaka said, looking both impressed and disappointed with me in turns.

"Eh." Another shrug, a sheepish smile. "If it works…"

Takanaka sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and shook his head, but over his mouth a small smile played—one that said he didn't approve of my methods, but that the results were enough to earn his forgiveness.

And I was happy about that forgiveness, all truth told.

No matter what Yusuke had to say on the matter, Takanaka was no doubt the best teacher I (not to mention Yusuke) had ever had.

"See you on Monday, sir." I bowed at him, then darted off down the sidewalk. "Yusuke, wait up!"

Yusuke just walked a little faster at my call, and behind me, Takanaka gave a wry—but fond—chuckle.

* * *

_Yusuke's grades are better in this version of YYH because NQK isn't above bribery to get him to attend class. Canon Takanaka probably was too upstanding to resort to that method, LOL._

_Of all the relationships I'm sad I didn't touch more on in LC, it's the relationship between Takanaka and Yusuke, and the relationship that could've been between Takanaka and NQK. He's basically the only healthy father figure Yusuke's got, so…_


	4. Freeze

**Day 4: "Freeze" [600 words]**

* * *

Seeing Yukina in human clothes was… odd. Not bad, certainly. She was cute as hell in _literally_ anything, hence why I'd spent the first half of our outing furtively staring at her. The look was just out of the ordinary, that's all—like she didn't quite know how to wear the clothes she'd chosen that morning on our shopping trip. I'd only ever seen her in kimonos, but today she'd bucked tradition and picked a yellow sundress and wide-brimmed hat. A white cardigan covered her shoulders and arms. It was entirely too hot for a cardigan, and the fact that she kept tugging at the collar of her dress, fair face flushed and glistening, told me she knew it, too.

But I got the feeling the cardigan was meant to conceal things she'd rather the humans passing by not notice, so I hadn't said anything when she'd bought it.

Yukina heaved a weary, but delicate, sigh. "It's certainly very hot in Human World, isn't it?" she said with a grimace, tugging at her collar again. She pulled the brim of her hat lower over her crimson eyes, shielding her face from the brutal Tokyo sun overhead. "Very hot indeed."

"Today's a scorcher, that's for sure." I pretended to look surprised, because I didn't want her knowing just how closely I'd been looking at her (talk about embarrassing). "Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

"Well…" She hesitated, wheels of civility turning behind her eyes. Eventually she said, with the smallest of smiles, "It isn't what I'm used to, certainly."

That was the admission I'd been waiting for. I took Yukina gently by the elbow and steered her into the shade beneath a nearby storefront's awning, scanning up and down the street until I spotted a convenience store on the corner. At once I broke into a trot, signaling over my shoulder for Yukina to stay put.

"Wait right here," I called.

"Keiko?!"

"_Two minutes!"_

Thank my lucky stars Yukina trusted me enough to listen. When I returned with cold water bottles tucked under my arms and a set of popsicles in my hand, I found her waiting exactly where I'd left her—although she looked more than a little bemused at the situation. That confusion only grew when I tore the wrapper off one of the popsicles and handed the treat to her, tucking the wrapper into my pocket and out of sight. She eyed the ice pop like it had come from another planet, but, not wanting to embarrass her by over explaining how to eat a popsicle, I just took the wrapper off my own treat and gave it a lick.

Still mystified, Yukina tentatively copied the motion—but then her eyes lit up, crimson turning the color of her cherry-flavored popsicle.

"This is delicious!" Yukina said.

"Really?"

"Yes." Another lick, another smile—but then her eyes turned sad. She gazed at the popsicle for a silent moment, one felt much longer that it really was, eyes going once again dark. Eventually she murmured, "We don't have anything like this where I'm from."

I didn't understand her melancholy. Then again, I didn't need to. All that mattered was that she looked sad.

"Are you OK?" I asked, fingertips on her elbow once more.

She took a deep breath. "Yes," she said—and her eyes brightened up again. "I'm happy." She nibbled at the popsicle, and she smiled. "I'm happy to be here, even if it's hot."

* * *

_IDK when this is supposed to take place. I guess it's NQK and Yukina on a little outing in Human World. A date? Maybe. Hope you liked it, whatever it is!_


	5. Build

A bit of body image issues appear in this installment.

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**Day 05: "Build**"

* * *

Alone in my bedroom, late one night after aikido practice, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and _looked_.

Well, looked and turned in a tight circle, eyes sweeping up and down my legs, over the muscles in my back, the sloping planes in the muscles of my thighs and arms. Keiko—_the body that was Keiko's_, that is—was slender. She wasn't skinny, though. She was far too muscular to be skinny. She had boyish hips and lean legs, with small breasts and a delicate jaw. Nice biceps and shoulders, though. Flexing brought out the strength in them, the strength that I had earned for the build of Keiko's borrowed body.

'Borrowed.' The word hung like a ghost over my musclebound shoulders, lingering and present.

She wasn't terribly feminine, this Keiko. She leaned more toward androgyny, short hair and defiant stare at odds with her full lips and wide eyes. Wear a baggy enough shirt, and gender became nondescript.

I liked it, though I hated admitting as much. I liked this body and its ambiguousness, not to mention its strength.

It was the kind of body I'd tortured myself to have, back when I was just me, and when Keiko was naught but fiction.

This Keiko wasn't much like the OG Keiko, physically speaking. Yusuke had made a big deal of her rounded ass, but mine? He'd never made a comment about it. I wasn't sure if that was because of size, or because our relationship was another thing I didn't have in common with the Keiko-that-should-have-been.

This Keiko wasn't much like my old self, either. My old metabolism couldn't keep up as I aged, hips and thighs rounding into stretch-mark covered fullness my mother often shook her head at, scolding me to watch my weight, because I wasn't so young anymore.

I met my eyes—I met _Keiko's_ eyes—in the mirror.

If this Keiko was not the Keiko-that-should-have-been, and she was nothing like the me-that-was—who did that make her?

My gaze dropped away from Keiko's staring face.

There would be time to find out, I promised myself.

There would be time—but later. Once Keiko's importance diminished.

Only once Keiko ceased to matter would there be room for _me_.

* * *

_Given my personal body image issues, I think I'd spend a lot of time overthinking the differences between my old body, Keiko's intended body, and the body I'd lead Keiko into having. In real life I struggle with a tough case of mind-body dualism. Basically I feel like my body is just a mecha carting around my brain, which is my true self, and my body is just my meat suit, but a healthier mindset is knowing your body directly influences the functionality of your brain (and vice versa) and you should accept your body as your own and take good care of it, which I struggle with._

_Anyway. Thanks for reading._


	6. Husky

_Takes place any time after Kurama and Kei start going to Lindy Hop dance meetups on the regular, because this takes place at once such meetup!_

* * *

**Day 6: "Husky" [870 words]**

* * *

One of the regulars at mine and Kurama's usual Lindy Hop joint had a new date with her—a furry one, to be specific. But rather than showing up with a hirsute man on her arm, she had one tucked neatly _under_ it, companion wrapped in a warm blanket to shield him from the winter's cold. Not that he needed much shielding. He was fluffy as hell, her new shiba inu puppy, and even cuter than that… which is why she'd gone and named her dog 'Kawaii-kun.'

It was a stupid name, in my opinion, but I said nothing and just cooed at him as she deposited him on the dancefloor to play and socialize. Predictably, the dancefloor soon turned into a puppy play-floor, practically everyone in the Lindy club gathering around to rub the dog's ears and try to teach him to sit.

'Practically everyone' means 'everyone but Kurama,' of course. He just hung back and watched, declining to come over and pet the dog even when I gestured that he_ definitely should get his ass over here, because the dog is soft as a cloud and worthy a few pats._

"And here I thought you were a cat person," he muttered out of the side of his mouth when I eventually tore myself away. He stood leaning against the bar, one elbow propped upon it, looking as suave as Kawaii-kun was cute.

"I am." I leaned against the bar beside him. "But I wasn't always." At his curious glance, I made an illustrative whirl through the air with my fingertip. "I was allergic to cats in my first trip 'round the mortal coil. Had to be a dog person by default."

"Really. I never would have guessed."

"Oh?"

"You dote on Sorei." His lip twitched at one corner. "And on a certain other stray of similar disposition." I knew who he meant, so he didn't bother naming names. "But I suppose you have more doglike people in your life upon whom you also dote."

No need to name names there, either. We watched the dancers and the dog for a few minutes in silence. Kawaii-kun rolled over for belly rubs, chased his tail, and tripped over his feet—after all, he was a puppy. Although I had never had much interaction with his breed, the way his head tilted left and right whenever he heard a new, foreign noise struck a chord in me.

"My old dog was a husky mix," I said as he tilted his head back and forth, back and forth—but instead of Kawaii-kun, I was seeing my dog in his place, raccoon masked-eyes glimmering, devious grin stretched around one of my favorite shoes as he chewed it into oblivion. The memory made me chuckle. "He was a shithead. But I loved him, so." A shrug as Kurama looked at me, nonplussed. "Miss the little bastard, if we're being honest."

He nodded, absorbing. "What was his name?"

"Nori."

He looked nonplussed again. "You named your dog after _seaweed_?"

"Better than naming him 'cutie-kun!'" I said with a gesture at the aforementioned. But when Kurama just lifted a brow, shaking his head because he was a Judgy McJudgepants, I planted my hands on my hips and glared. "Well then, Mister Critical. Have _you_ had any pets? Bet your names for them weren't any better than mine."

His head cocked, almost mimicking Kawaii-kun's. He considered the humans and the dog (now playing tug-of-war with one of the bartender's checkered towels) in silence. Kurama shifted his elbow off of the bar, crossing his arms over his chest with a long, slow exhale—one that sounded almost like a hum.

"Pets," he mused. His mouth hitched at the corner again. "I suppose you could say I've had… 'pets' in my lifetime."

His smile wasn't a smile, but rather a smirk, although it took me a second to recognize it as such. It was a small, satisfied smirk, and that sigh and odd emphasis made it sound like he was recalling something private… and pleasant.

At once, my brain spun out and sputtered to a stop. And I suppose the fact that my brain was now sporting an OUT OF ORDER sign must've been obvious, because when Kurama's eyes flashed in my direction, that telltale smirk vanished at once.

"Kei?" Kurama said. "What's wrong? You look pale."

I took a deep breath. Refused to look at him. Said in a voice like a mortified robot's: "Too much fanfiction lead my brain down the worst possible explanation behind that statement and I am experiencing a momentary mental power outage as a result."

"Fanfiction?" Movement in my periphery, Kurama reaching for my elbow. "What is—?"

I bolted away from him with a yodel of, "Never mind, too awkward, gotta go, byyyyee!"

"Go _where_?" Kurama called, sounding equal parts amused and incensed.

"Anywhere where I can pull my mind out of the gutter in peace! _Bye!_"

I played with the dog for an hour and refused to look Kurama in the eye for the rest of the night, which I think he found funny, because he kept muttering guesses as to what the meaning of the word 'fanfiction' might be every time we passed one another on the dancefloor every few minutes thereafter—much to my chagrin and to his laughing, smirking satisfaction, that _bastard_.

* * *

_The number of fanfics about Yoko Kurama deciding to keep an OC as a "pet" are where NQK's mind went, in case some of you weren't aware of that particular Kurama-specific fanfic trope. Is that what he was referring to, or was Keiko mistaken? YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MIIIINE. This is a what-if drabble; I DON'T HAVE TO MAKE THESE DECISIONS, DAMMIT._

_AND OH BTW I really did name my dog "Nori" and he's a shithead of the highest order and I love him even though he's eaten my nicest pairs of tennis shoes, sandals, boots and high heels BUT HAS TOUCHED NOT A SINGLE PAIR OF MY GODDAMN BOYFRIEND'S FOOTWEAR._


	7. Enchanted

**Day 07: "Enchanted" [900]**

* * *

Kuwabara's new jacket was itching the back of his neck, but he tried to play it cool. Didn't want Keiko seeing him squirming over something as stupid as the tag he forgot to clip out of the jacket's collar. He'd bought the jacket to look _cool_, after all; squirming wasn't an option. He just tried to look serious (suave, even) as he flipped through the records in front of him, playacting like he was paying close attention to every record that passed beneath his thumb.

He wasn't looking at the records, though.

Mostly, he was looking at Keiko.

But subtly! But not creepily! Staring was impolite, and Kuwabara knew not to do it for very long. Shizuru made it clear that if you had a crush on a girl, getting all stalkerish was the exact opposite of how a man should behave. That's why Kuwabara only shot furtive glances in Keiko's direction, taking in the long arc of her neck and the determined set of her lips in snippets—little stolen glances, a movie acquired frame by frame and spliced together later, in the privacy of his head. Her punk-rocker haircut fell over one eye, and he caught the moment she brushed it impatiently behind her ear as she thumbed through the rock genre section of the record store. It was a gesture of habit, one he'd seen her perform a hundred times or more, like the way he'd seen her nibble daintily at her thumbnail like she was doing just then.

And yet, every time he saw it, he couldn't help but think that Yukimura Keiko was freakin' _cute_.

But Kuwabara wasn't the smoothest person out there. He knew that, which is why it didn't surprise him that Keiko eventually caught him looking at her. Kuwabara's heart leapt into his mouth when their eyes snagged on each other's, heat rising in his face—but Keiko just smiled. She smiled like she was about to say 'hey, stranger' or 'something on my face?' A quick quip to put him at ease; that sort of thing.

He looked away before she could say anything, and he tried very hard to ignore the way his ears had started to burn.

They looked through the records for a while longer. Kuwabara tried quite valiantly not to look at Keiko, but he couldn't help but notice when her hands froze atop the records she'd been flipping through. Her chin tilted upward, hair falling over her smooth cheek, eyes trained on the ceiling above her head. Her eyes eventually moved down, toward the shop's front counter—and, more specifically, the record player upon it.

Oh. So she was listening to what it was playing, then.

Kuwabara didn't recognize the tune. It sounded old-fashioned, and the singer sang in English, words backed up by a full orchestra. It definitely wasn't Megallica, he thought, and definitely not his taste. He wouldn't have thunk it was Keiko's taste, either—but her mouth moved along with the words, lyrics whispered under her breath and through her teeth. And when she walked past him toward the counter, he heard her humming along under her breath.

Keiko leaned an elbow on the counter when she reached it, flagging down the shopkeeper as he sorted through a box of old tapes. "_South Pacific_?" she said with a nod at the record player nearby.

"Yeah," said the shopkeeper. "You a Broadway fan?"

"A little. How much for the press?"

He named a price, and without missing a beat, she paid it. She paid for the American musical _South Pacific_ album and sandwiched it between albums by Megadeath and Megallica, the odd trio tucked tightly under her arm when they left the store. She was still humming the old-fashioned tune they'd heard playing in the store, too, as they walked away along the street.

"So. Um." He shot her a sidelong glance, trying not to fidget. "Musicals, huh?"

Keiko didn't stop humming. She just nodded and smiled—but there was a tightness in her expression he didn't understand. An odd tension he couldn't name, like the album had upset her just a little—and yet, she'd purchased it. But why purchase something that upsets you?

"Didn't know you liked musicals," Kuwabara said.

Her humming ceased. Keiko shook her head, smile taut.

"What can I say?" Keiko half-sang. "I contain _multitudes_!"

It was a light brush-off, nonchalant and spoken with humor. But Kuwabara knew this was her way of dodging the subject, playing it off as unimportant even though he could tell it wasn't that. She avoided a lot of subjects that way. It was always little things she didn't want to talk about. She was weird like that—warm and babbling one minute, closed off and shuttered the next.

Keiko had secrets, basically. That's what Kuwabara had privately decided. She had secrets, ones he could sense like the scent of a storm on the horizon. But he didn't much care what those secrets were. If she ever told them to him, they wouldn't change a thing he felt.

She was _Keiko_, after all.

That was good enough for him.

But the only thing that remains constant in life is that life never remains the same.

Kuwabara would look back on that afternoon at the record store in a different light, later on down the line, the irony of his convictions only made visible in hindsight.

* * *

_The song on the record player was "Some **Enchanted** Evening."_

_I did musical theater from middle school to college, and performing in South Pacific was one of my fav experiences. Miss acting a lot._

_It's embarrassing to write about a character having a crush on what is essentially yourself. But i think it needed to be done now that Kuwabara has been more honest about his feelings in LC (as of chapter 94)._

_A bit ominous final line there, but… foreshadowing, I guess. Thanks for reading._


	8. Frail

_Takes place around chapter 60, while Keiko's foot is in a cast after her fall off the school roof during the Saint Beasts arc, during an aikido lesson in which Hideki teaches her to throw knives in lieu of regular practice._

* * *

**Day 08: "Frail" [850 words]**

* * *

The tenth knife I'd thrown that night fell short and to the side of the black wooden target leaning against the warehouse's far wall. Hideki watched the miss through narrow eyes, assessing me as I picked up another weapon and prepared to lob it at the human-shaped cutout across from me.

"You're twisting too much," he said before I could let the object fly. He stepped forward, tapping my shoulder, hip and elbow with the back of his hand to get them into proper form. "Be fluid, but not loose. Keep your feet squared beneath you."

I gave him a Look at that final comment. My leg was in a cast from toes to kneecap; I stood with my knee resting on a chair to keep me upright and off my injured leg. 'Keeping my feet under me' was basically impossible, but at my Look, Hideki just scoffed.

"I know you're having to kneel, but that's your own fault." He tapped my shoulder again. "Adjust. Now try again."

I sighed and threw the knife. This time it went the distance, but it only tipped the side of the target. Far cry from a true hit. The dour glint in Hideki's grey eyes told me he agreed.

"Don't suppose you could just heal me, eh?" I said, trying to lighten the tension with a joke.

Hideki stared like a dead dish. "You know better than that."

"Do I?"

"Yes. Think about it." He held up his thumb, pointer and middle fingers. "There are three reasons I won't do anything about your leg. What are they?"

He gave me a moment to think about it, although I didn't really need one. Behind us, Ezakiya and Kagome sparred on the practice mat, the din of cheering and jibes from other students keeping time with their feints, dodges and hard strikes. Hideki's impassive face made me fidget in place, feeling like a turtle turned on its back under his deadly critical eyes.

"Well, the first reason probably has something to do with how I was taken to a hospital and x-rayed before I could even think to _try_ and somehow hobble to a phone to call you," I said with a long sigh. "My parents, the paramedics and the doctors all saw how badly I was hurt. If I show up suddenly healed, it'll raise questions."

"Too many questions. I won't risk my secrecy to heal something that will heal on its own with time," he said. "The second reason?"

"Uh… I guess the second reason is what you just said. It's a risk to you, giving regular people evidence that supernatural healing exists." I chanced a smile. "And you aren't my own personal hospital, so…"

"Correct." He didn't smile back. "Final reason?"

This time, I drew a blank. The other reasons were ones I'd thought of on my own—hence why I hadn't asked him to heal me before then, truth be told, and why I'd phrased my earlier inquiry like a joke—but there was a _third_? I had no clue what it could be.

Hideki leaned toward me, still sporting his dead-fish stare.

"Having a broken wing like this," he intoned, "will, perhaps, teach you not to go jumping off of roofs anymore."

I rolled my eyes with a snort. "Ha ha, very funny."

"I'm not joking. You aren't made of the same stuff as your demon friends." His tone brooked no room for argument, and it didn't contain an ounce of sympathy, either. "You are stronger than most people your age, it's true, but compared to what you'll face by the side of a Spirit Detective? You are fragile, Yukimura. You are _frail_." He shook his head and backed up a pace, finally giving me room to breathe. "The quicker you understand that, the better."

I _did_ understand that, is what I wanted to tell him. I _did_ understand that I was fragile. I _did_ understand that I was frail. I needed no lectures. There was no reason for him to tell me what I already knew.

But I didn't say any of that. I just murmured, "Lesson learned, Hideki-sensei," and tried not to let any of what I was feeling show on my face.

"Good," said Hideki. He gestured at the target. "Now try again."

I obeyed. I raised my knife and threw it, _hard_, at the target across from me—and this time it flew straight and true, burying itself to the hilt in the wooden cutout, propelled through the air by the frustration, the anger, the sheer resentment that had reared its head when Hideki reminded me of facts I already, painfully knew.

But Hideki, if he sensed what had driven my throw, said nothing.

"Keep that up," he merely told me, a smirk cracking through his poker face, "and the demons won't stand a chance."

His words made me feel better—but only a little.

I'd only feel truly better—would only be able to put these feelings to rest at last—once I corrected my powerless lot in life.

Good thing I had every intention of doing just that, and soon.

* * *

_I may had written on this subject before (can't recall) but someone once brought up that they couldn't believe Keiko wouldn't have Hideki heal her leg and get her off of crutches faster… but there are good reasons he simply would not do so. Figured I ought to write those reasons out at long last; this prompt provided the perfect opportunity._


	9. Swing

_Set after the Saint Beast arc, where Keiko broke her leg (the previous prompt has me thinking about that time period a bunch!)._

* * *

**Day 09: "Swing" [750 words]**

* * *

Not long after he defeated Suzaku, and only a few days after my school started up again after the chaos caused by the aforementioned demon's mind-control bugs, Yusuke called my family's business line very early in the morning. Odd for him to be up at that hour, let alone call and ask for me on our business line. I shifted atop my crutches when he gave a long, suspicious pause after I greeted him, listening to the faint hiss of his breath through the receiver.

To my left, Dad poked his head out of the kitchen, one eyebrow raised. Some of the cooks rattled around behind him, utensils scraping pots as scents of the ingredients they were prepping wafted out the door. I shook my head, shrugging, and Dad disappeared into the kitchen again.

"What's up?" I repeated when Yusuke failed to reply.

He sighed. "Do you know where sports store is?"

"…a 'sports store?'"

"Yeah. A _sports store_," he said, impatient. "Like the place you buy baseballs and stuff; you know!"

"I think there's a sporting goods store on 8th up in the shopping district," I said. "But you _hate_ sports. Why—?"

He'd already hung up. But nevertheless I received my answer shortly, when I got home from school and found him lounging on my bed (and probably getting pomade all over my pillowcase, too). Started to greet him as he sat up and swung his legs over the bed's side, but I spotted a large shopping bag on the floor by my desk and paused. The logo on the bag was for the store I'd mentioned during the call; I recognized it at once.

"Hello, Yusuke." I pointed at the bag. "I see you paid that store a visit."

He didn't say anything. He just grabbed the bag and waited for me to sit down before shoving it into my hands. When I looked at him, slack jawed with confusion, he gave the bag a little shove, protective wrapping paper inside it rustling. Whatever lay within was long and heavy, solid like maybe it was made of wood.

"Well, don't just stand there staring at me all day!" Yusuke snapped. "Open it!"

"Yusuke, what—?"

"Open it, dammit!"

He was in A Mood™, it seemed. I knew better than to poke the bear, so I just started to unwrap whatever it was he'd bought as he stood back, watching with his arms crossed over his chest, defiant scowl decorating his pinched face.

"And before you accuse me of stealing it," he said, "there's a receipt in the bag. Took my whole goddamn allowance, too." A roll of his very expressive eyes. "They keep the damn things locked up behind the friggin' _counter_."

His mention of a receipt got me to look up. "You paid for a present. For _me?_"

"It's not a _present_," he spat, like it was a dirty word. "More like an insurance policy."

"An insurance policy," I repeated with a deadpan stare, and just then the final paper fell away from the object in the bag. I took it out and held it up, brow furrowed. "A cricket bat? You bought me a cricket bat?"

"Well it's not like I could buy you a taser!" he snarked. "I looked into it and you gotta be a certain age to buy one, or something stupid like that—and _you_ already know how to make one, so…"

"I'm… touched, I guess." Setting the cricket bat across my lap, I turned to him and asked, "But why?"

"Well, after I saw you swingin' that baseball bat around on that asshole Suzaku's movie screen, I figure if another zombie hoard comes rollin' through town, I won't have to spend as much time worrying about you when I know you have something like it under your bed." He was grinning, eyes sparking with a bright pop of pride. "You could play in the majors, y'know? Even I'm scare if you with a bat in your hand."

"Aw." I put a hand to my heart. "You really care about me!"

Yusuke scoffed. "Don't read into it, all right? Just need somebody around to do my laundry, that's all."

"Right. Of course." My fingers drummed against the bat in a quick, jaunty; soon I giggled. "I think I'm gonna name him… Ferdinand."

"Well _that's_ a stupid name," he said, and because I was on crutches, he managed to dash out the door with a cackle before I could mess up his hair in retaliation for that slight.

* * *

_Sometimes I don't know how to end these? This ending I just thought was funny. Was gonna tack something on about how Yusuke cares, but I'm not feeling sentimental so screw it, this ends here!_

_Also… some of these little bits and bobs are probably going to end up being relevant in LC's main storyline. Not in a big way or anything, but in small ways. I'll be sure to point it out in LC when it happens._

_I named my IRL ukulele "Ferdinand," btw. Thanks for reading!_


	10. Pattern

_Set any time after Botan gets her Evil Eye and begins training with Hiei to control it._

* * *

**Day 10: "Pattern" [640 words]**

* * *

Botan's back slammed into the tree like a wrecking ball, the crack of fractured bark lost under the sound of her wheezing gasp. The breath had gone out of her; she slumped to the ground, knees and hands hitting the cold, damp earth as she fought to draw air into her tortured lungs. They burned, but then again, so did her hands, her thighs, and her arms. Her _everything_ burned, to get right down to it.

Having a physical body was no picnic, it turns out—especially when being trained under a martial arts teacher like Hiei.

The fire demon in question appeared before her a moment later. He stood in silence, practically looming despite his height as she fought to stand, cherry-red eyes burning like a set of imperious, judgmental coals. Botan tried not to pay him any attention, though. She just focused on the monumental task of coaxing breath back into her lungs, concentrating on the scent of tree sap slowly filling the quiet mountain air.

When Botan finally managed to stand, Hiei said, "You're attacking in a pattern."

He didn't voice it like an accusation. More a statement of raw fact, like he had commented on the day's temperature—and the fact that he knew with such certainty what Botan had been doing, was so _damnably_ self-assured in his assessment of her, roused her ire at once.

"No, I am not!" she protested, but Hiei's flashing eyes silenced her in an instant.

"You dart forward, feint, and try to fake me out," he snapped. "But I'm faster than you. It won't work."

"Not for lack of trying," Botan muttered, and before he could comment on her grouse, she threw up her hands in frustration. "Why do I even need to learn to fight, anyway? We're here to teach me to control my Eye; wouldn't meditation be a better—?"

"Not yet." He didn't bother letting her finish, and when his eyes swept over her from feet to ponytail, there was nothing in his gaze but detached and distant impartiality. "You're out of touch with your physical form."

"Well, I haven't had one for very long!" Botan shot back.

"And that's the problem." The length of bamboo in Hiei's hand rose (his version of a training sword, blunt but still deadly in his grip), pointing squarely at Botan's chest. "You underestimate just how much your physical form impacts the ebb and flow of your energy." His lips curled into a sneer, disdain breaking through at last. "Do you _run_ before you _walk_? No. No, you don't. So start small and build up, _idiot_."

"But—"

"Am I the teacher or are you?"

The pair stared at one another for a long, quiet minute. Cold mountain wind rustled the treetops, but Botan barely felt it. The burn of frustration kept her warm. She knew Hiei knew what he was talking about, but this wasn't what she'd expected from their training, nor how she wanted to spend her time. What she wanted was to learn to control her eye so she could go—

Botan's train of thought came crashing to a halt.

She had almost thought the word 'home.' But the way her throat tightened told her that Spirit World and home weren't necessarily the same place anymore—but if home wasn't there, where was it?

Botan wasn't sure.

But Hiei was still staring at her, so Botan huffed, "_Fine_, Hiei. You win."

Now wasn't the time to decide what she would do or where she would go when she learned to control herself. She tore her eyes from Hiei's and sighed, snatching her own bamboo rod off the ground so she could slide into a fighting stance. Hiei looked on with a smirk, then blurred out of sight into the trees.

Botan waited, tense as a bowstring, for him to strike.

* * *

_A quick look into the Hiei-Botan-training! Haven't revealed much about it at all yet, so… here we are! Next prompt will also be about Hiei, for what it's worth._


	11. Snow

_Set basically any time after Hiei and Keiko became friends._

* * *

**Day 11: "Snow" [350 words]**

* * *

Snow in Human World was the same as snow in Demon World, and to Hiei, this was an unexpected disappointment.

Not that he had had any particular expectations for Human World's snow prior to arriving on that plane of existence. He simply hadn't given the qualities of Human World snow any thought before he found it falling gently onto his hair, where it melted and turned to hissing steam. He studied the snow in silence after it began to fall, scarlet eyes burning in the dark. The snowflakes were the same size as those he'd seen in Demon World, and their coldness was familiar.

Familiar because this snow was, down to its sheer color, the same snow that had fallen on the floating island of the Koorime—that selfsame island from which he had been tossed as an infant.

How odd, that the snow here was identical to that he'd left behind. How odd, when the rest of Human World was so much warmer in comparison.

In the dark of the alley behind Meigo's home, he pressed his thin mouth against his scarf, head bowed to shield him from the snow.

Hiei would never admit it to anyone, but he hated the feeling of the snow on his skin.

Just as he gave thought to leaving, of flitting away into the dark and to one of the many shelters he'd secured around the city, the back door of the Yukimura restaurant opened with a creak. Golden light lanced through the gloom, cutting across his face like a shaft of sunlight. A silhouette appeared amid it, short hair and thin shoulders limned with amber.

"Hiei?" Meigo called into the dark.

"Meigo," Hiei called back—perhaps too quickly, too easily, for his liking.

As if sensing his displeasure, Meigo's silhouette vibrated with a shiver. "Get inside," she said, gesturing. "It's freezing out here!"

"I'm not cold."

"Maybe _you_ aren't, but I am." She gestured again. "Now c'mon." A smile lit her voice. "Ramen tastes best on a cold day, anyway."

Hiei hesitated.

But soon he let her lead him inside, out of the dark and in from the winter cold.

* * *

_Please imagine Keiko doing a double take and asking "Are you literally _steaming_?" as he walks inside and she notices the way snow immediately evaporates off his too-hot skin and hair._

_Thanks for reading! Enjoyed writing this. Hiei speaks in the strangest of ways..._


	12. Dragon

_Set immediately after NQK bandaged Hiei's arm chapter 87 of _Lucky Child.

* * *

**Day 12: "Dragon," Part 1 [470 words]**

* * *

After he told Meigo how damnably _useless_ she was, Hiei bolted away into the dark.

He wasn't running, he told himself as he darted through the trees in the forest surrounding Hotel Kubikukuri. He was putting distance between himself and a liability. This was a tactical retreat, if anything. Meigo claimed she had travelled to the tournament site only to help, but she was a fool. She was in the way. She should have stayed home, damn her, and her attendance would achieve nothing but distraction for both Hiei and his teammates.

And distraction at this tournament was deadly. His lost match ("_Tied_ match!" Meigo had insisted) was proof enough.

He reached the ocean in short order, where he perched on a boulder halfway lodged in the crashing surf. He did not mind the drops that splattered on his hair and cloak. He just sat, hunched over the bound shape of his right arm, staring through scarlet eyes at the dark and tumultuous sea, breathing the salt of the humid seaside air.

Soon, however, the ever-present pain in his arm sent a pulse of agony up into his shoulder. He flexed his fingers on reflex—this was a mistake. The pain intensified, only abating the smallest fraction when he relaxed his muscles one by one.

The bandages around said muscles were wrapped quite neatly. The salve under it felt cool against his overheated flesh, but that relief only went skin deep. It soothed nothing beyond the surface-level sting possessing his charred skin. The Dragon still raged beneath it, thrashing as it attempted to break free.

To break free and _devour_ him, he knew. Its intentions were as clear as it sentience, and Meigo's useless dressing had done nothing to calm it whatsoever.

But Meigo—that maddening, useless human who held odd knowledge of the future—had told Hiei that his arm would eventually convalesce.

Did he believe her?

Hiei flexed his fingers again, gritting his teeth against the searing pain.

If he let the Dragon free, it would devour Meigo as quickly as it would himself.

Hiei stared at the ocean for a time, tracing the line of the horizon where it curved around the earth—the planet Meigo had taught him was round, and rotated in a loop around the sun.

Slowly, Hiei rose to his feet.

Meigo had tried to counsel him beside the glowing hotel pool. The things she had to say, however, were of no importance to Hiei. If he fought, and bit, and clawed and scratched his way to taming the Dragon, it wouldn't be because Meigo had told him to do so. It would be because _he_ had decided that was the best course of action to take—Hiei, and no one else.

And tame the Dragon he would, with or without Meigo's unwanted help.

* * *

**Day 12: "Dragon," Part 2 [480 words]**

* * *

_Set any time after NQK and Kurama became close friends. _

* * *

She presented him with a cardboard jewelry box, small and unassuming, tied shut with a green ribbon. Kurama asked her what the occasion was, but Kei merely hummed and demanded that he open it. He did so mostly (entirely) to humor her, taking his time to unravel the ribbon and remove the lid, enjoying it when she squirmed, and huffed, and told him that she knew he was being annoying on purpose.

That only made him smile—but the smile faded when he saw the enamel pin sitting on a cotton cushion within the box. He took it out and held it up, noting the way Kei had begun to grin. The green-tinted light of the school's hothouse sparked off the gold, white and pink enamel, muddying the colors somewhat.

"A snapdragon?" he said, naming the flower depicted on the pin.

"Yes," Kei said, still grinning.

"But… why?"

Kei giggled and grabbed her school bag off the ground at her feet. Upon its front gleamed an identical enamel pin, small enough that the teachers might miss it—at least for a little while. They'd no doubt tell her to remove it once it was spotted.

"It's our club symbol," Kei said. "We're the Snapdragon Club!"

"Really." Kurama placed the pin back inside the box. "And here I thought this was the headquarters of the Gardening Club."

Kei's eyes rolled. "I mean it's our personal club—yours and mine. We're the Snapdragon Club because… well, _you_ know." And she was grinning again, gesturing at the snapdragon on her bag. "Because we're _liars!_"

And suddenly the pin made sense. Kurama found himself grinning, too, though he tried to suppress the expression. He just chuckled, turning from Kei so he could place the pin and its protective box into his own school bag.

"My, how fitting indeed," he said, and once more he heard Kei laugh.

He didn't place the pin on his bag as she had. He took it home and tucked it into the top drawer of his desk and out of sight. Most days, he was content to know it was simply there, waiting for him. On others, he'd spot it while fishing through the drawer for a pen, its gold edges catching the light with a curious, knowing flash. The sight of it usually coaxed from him the smallest of smiles, even as it placed a cold, heavy weight inside his chest.

He did not necessarily enjoy being part of the Snapdragon Club—but it was comforting to know he was not its sole member, either.

When the other member of the club asked what he'd done with her gift, since he had not placed it on his bag, Kurama's explained that he did not want their classmates asking questions about their matching pins—which was true.

He simply did not want his mother asking questions even more.

* * *

_Snapdragons mean "deceit" in the language of flowers, FYI._

_Structuring the "dragon" prompt around Hiei felt… too easy, I guess? So I thought on it a little harder and came up with the Kurama prompt, but I liked them both enough to write out in full. I hope you liked getting two prompts in one!_


	13. Ash

_Set shortly after Genkai's tournament of succession, when she decided to train both Yusuke AND Kuwabara and called a shocked NQK to tell her so._

* * *

**Day 13: "Ash" [490 words]**

* * *

The Dimwit's snores didn't waver when Genkai tapped the bowl of her pipe against the temple porch. One, two, three hard knocks right next to his head, and he just kept sleeping—but the Blockhead beside him reacted, if only a little bit. His chest hitched, snores stopping only to stutter back to life a moment later. His breath blew up the front of his disheveled pompadour, chiseled cheeks hollowing out with the force of his inhale.

Genkai stood and walked away from her apprentices. Dimwit and Blockhead slept in a puddle of sunlight, limbs covered in matching networks of blue bruises and red scrapes. She'd been working them to their breaking point—but working them to their breaking point was, indeed, the point of why they were there. Nobody got strong be being coddled by their sensei… but she wasn't so cruel as to deny them a little nap before the going got truly tough.

Not that that girl, Keiko, had understood the necessity of tough training. She'd sounded outright panicked on the phone when Genkai told her that she'd chosen both boys to train under her. Was almost funny, really; Genkai had certainly gotten a good laugh out of the conversation, a laugh entirely at Keiko's expense.

When she got a reasonable distance from the napping boys, Genkai lowered herself to the porch with a grunt. She'd never admit it, but her old bones ached after sparring with them—nothing a little punch of healing energy couldn't fix, of course. She was old, not decrepit. She certainly wasn't too old to enjoy a good, long smoke on her _kiseru_ pipe, either.

Her gnarled fingers held quite steady as she tapped the ashes from her pipe's bowl into a crack in the temple porch, and they continued to hold steady when she repacked the bowl with fragrant, spiced tobacco. Lighting up, Genkai savored the taste as she breathe the smoke into her lungs, leaning her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her hand as she smoked.

Further down the porch, Blockhead snorted in his sleep, and he murmured a certain young lady's name.

Genkai suppressed a laugh. She wondered, idly, if Keiko—or whatever her real name was—had found the powers she'd been seeking. She wondered when she'd come clean to the Dimwit; neither he nor Blockhead (who was clearly deep in puppy love with her) seemed to know that Keiko was anything besides a normal middle school girl. Genkai could read the signs of that as plain as day.

Most of all, Genkai wondered how many more phone calls she'd make to Keiko in the coming months as she trained the Dimwit and the Blockhead, and whether or not they'd be as much sadistic fun as her call to Keiko earlier that day had been.

Whatever the case, Genkai was certain she hadn't seen the last of her. Girls as tenacious as that tended to stick around.

* * *

"_Ash" immediately made me think of Genkai and her pipe._

"_Dimwit" is obvs Yusuke. "Blockhead" is Kuwabara. Figured Genkai would have given him a nickname, too._


	14. Overgrown

_Set during Kurama's middle school years._

* * *

**Day 14: "Overgrown" [420 words]**

* * *

Akutsu-sensei's brow lifted the moment Minamino Shuichi handed him the middle school club selection sheet. The boy's desired club had been penned in neat, even script, but Akutsu could scarcely believe what Minamino had chosen to jot on the dotted line.

"Gardening club? But that shut down years ago," he said, not bothering to hide his surprise. He looked Minamino over, searching for a hidden grin (because surely he was joking!), but all he found was a pair of calm and serious green eyes staring back at him. Shrugging, Akutsu said, "Well, if you're sure, I suppose you could start it back up again… but you have your work cut out for you."

Minamino only nodded, not looking particularly off put. Sensing he wouldn't be dissuaded so easily, and wishing such an exemplary student would choose a more prestigious club better suited to his intellect, Akutsu dutifully lead him to the school's greenhouse—but it was a "green" house in name only. Even from the outside, it was obvious that the building had seen better days. Dead twigs scraped against the glass, desperate to escape and taste fresh air. Dead, desiccated leaves lay in drifts in every corner and beneath every withered potted plant. Toward the back of the greenhouse, a climbing ivy vine had gone feral, overgrowing its container and choking out the other plants. Surely it was the only thing left alive inside the greenhouse. The rest was beyond saving. The cleanup of the dead plants alone would take weeks.

But Minamino didn't seem to mind. He only nodded, bowed, and bid Akutsu-sensei goodbye before prying open the greenhouse's door and disappearing into the lifeless chaos within. Akutsu stared after the boy with a sympathetic look on his face, but, remembering that he had papers to grade, he turned and left the greenhouse and its latest occupant behind.

In the coming days, Akutsu did not give much thought to young Minamino-san. Minamino was one student in a sea of many, after all, exemplary grades notwithstanding. It's little wonder that Akutsu soon quite forgot all amount him and the greenhouse in its state of disrepair—but when a vase of fragrant lilacs appeared on his desk in the teacher's room not one month later, alongside an unsigned note that merely said "for your help" in neat, even script, Akutsu trekked down to the greenhouse once more.

He found it overflowing with blooming flowers and new, healthy plants—plants as green as the eyes of the young man who tended them, and who wore the smallest, most secretive of smiles on his face when Akutsu asked how he'd managed to tame the wild, half-dead garden.

* * *

_I gotta admit I get tired of writing about Keiko in all of these, LOL. I know LC is about her, but that just means side-fics like this one can break the mold and branch out (pun intended). So here's a snippet of Kurama's childhood, I guess. Hope you liked it!_

_I also plan on writing a follow-up to this from Kurama's perspective._


	15. Legend

_Set during the Dark Tournament._

* * *

**Day 15: "Legend" [530 words]**

* * *

Dinner that night was pizza, because Yusuke had demanded it and room service was comped by Hotel Kubikukuri. Kuwabara grumbled under his breath that pizza was stupid, and they should be getting "y'know, swanky stuff" instead—a bit of petty revenge, he explained. A real punch to the tournament backers' in the wallets.

Privately, Kurama mused that it would take a thousand of the "swankiest" meals in the Human Realm for the tournament backers to even begin to notice Kuwabara's ploy to inconvenience them, but he kept that opinion to himself.

He also kept to himself the opinion that their team captain was, to put it bluntly, not exactly the classic idea of team captain material. Kurama liked Yusuke, and he trusted his judgement implicitly, but he knew outsiders would scoff at the way Yusuke and Kuwabara bickered and fought over the pizza when it arrived. Yusuke put Kuwabara in a headlock, which Kuwabara managed to wriggle out of with an impressive show of flexibility, and he was certain they would have come to blows had Kei not stepped in and put a stop to it. She made the pair eat on opposite sides of the table in the suite's dining room, and when they began kicking each other's shins underneath it, she made Yusuke eat in another room entirely. The whole affair made Kurama laugh, but it also brought to mind a rather important question. Thus, when Kei stalked off into the kitchen with a frustrated sigh, he followed in her wake.

He found her digging through the freezer's icemaker, filling a cup that she then rolled across her forehead, face screwed up like perhaps she'd begun to nurse a headache. He waited for her to open her eyes and spot him to speak. Kei tended to scare easily, and he had no intention of adding to her headache.

"Are you certain there was a legend about them?" he said with a subtle nod toward the dining room (and then toward the living room, where Yusuke was shouting something about shoving a piece of pizza up Kuwabara's backside).

Kei tilted her head to one side, ice still pressed to her temple. "Hmm?"

"The legend." When she still looked mystified, Kurama lowered his voice and added, "The one we're all a part of that you told me about. Remember?"

"Oh. _That_," she said, eyes clearing. Kurama filed her confusion away for future scrutiny as she nodded and smiled a smile that was, perhaps, closer bedfellows to a grimace. "Yeah. I'm very sure. Hard to believe sometimes, though, considering how completely immatu—hey,_ no throwing pizza in a hotel room!_"

Kei's cup of ice hit the counter with a clatter and then she was out the door and bolting after Yusuke, who had advanced into kitchen with a pizza slice raised high above his head (not to mention his devious grin). Kurama watched the melee from the kitchen with a grin of his own, laughing as Kei was forced yet again to separate Kurama's warring teammates—but the image of her confused face followed him into the night, and he had to wonder if she was, in fact, telling him the whole story about the legend from which they haled. It wouldn't surprise him if she still had secrets. He had secrets of his own, too.

After all… they were both founding members of the inimitable Snapdragon Club.

* * *

_The lie Keiko is telling here is that they're all part of a legend instead of a shonen manga/anime series, because she recognizes that that sounds ridiculous. It's a small lie, but Kurama is too smart not to notice she forgot part of her own fiction._


	16. Wild

_Set after the fire where Keiko saves Yusuke and gets a dramatic new 'do._

* * *

**Day 16: "Wild" [360 words]**

* * *

I loved my new haircut. Let's get that out of the way first.

The cut—clipped by Shizuru after my dramatic brush with a certain house-fire—was kind of a bucket list item. I'd always toyed with the idea of chopping off my hair and going full-on pixie in my previous life, but my grandmother had been attached to my long hair. I held onto it for her sake, and I worried that I didn't have the right kind of face to sport short hair.

Time and experience have told me everyone has the face for any kind of hair, and being so critical was self-defeating, but I digress.

In my new life, my obligation to my granny wasn't so concrete. I was dead; I was someone else; I could have whatever hair I wanted now. So when the fire singed my locks and necessitated a trip to Shizuru's salon, I asked for my bucket-list-hairstyle with a grin on my face. It was a punky haircut, with a shaved neck and short sides and a swath of super long bangs that fell dramatically down my left cheek. Ruby Rose's hair had been my main style inspiration, though of course she didn't exist yet to use as a reference. As a result, Shizuru made the style unique to her haircutting sensibilities, and I walked out of her salon with a haircut that was all my own.

And I _loved_ it.

…but I loved it less in the mornings, when I stumbled bleary-eyed into the bathroom and inevitably saw that it had been turned into a wild mess of cowlicks and tangles by my uncaring pillowcase. It stuck out in all directions in the early hours, looking like the crown of a fraidy-cat cockatoo that had just walked through a haunted house AND had gotten its beak stuck in an electrical outlet.

Although I'd heard former short-haired roommates kvetch about the ravages of sleep on their pixies and bobs, I guess I'd never quite thought that such a thing would happen to me—but I guess even lucky children like me aren't immune from an occasional bad hair day.

* * *

_Just a little rumination over Keiko's short hair. Now the cockatoo preview image I shared on Tumblr finally makes sense, huh? XD_


	17. Ornament

_Just a little rumination over Keiko's short hair. Now the cockatoo preview image I shared on Tumblr finally makes sense, huh? XD_

* * *

**Day 17: "Ornament" [345 words]**

* * *

Jii-chan acquired talismans for the shrine when Kagome was eleven years old. He claimed they were replicas of something called the "Shikon no Tama" and that they would bring prosperity to whoever purchased one. The talismans were composed of small, crystalline spheres suspended on a length of braided cord and a small wooden tab with the name of the shrine inscribed upon it. The braid, the wood, the crystal came together to form something mystical, like perhaps it had been handcrafted by Jii-chan himself somewhere within the shrine's bamboo-shrouded walls.

In truth, he'd ordered them in bulk from a wholesaler somewhere, and they were keychains—just regular-ass, humdrum _keychains_ made out of marbles, glass all swirled through with cheap glitter and patchy dye. If Kagome had to bet, they probably looked nothing like the _real_ Shikon no Tama (a jewel she was fairly certain her grandfather didn't actually believe was real). It was just a legend, one he'd taken advantage of to sell a useless piece of junk to tourists and students who needed good luck on their exams.

Kagome stole one of the jewels from the box in the shrine gift shop the first chance she got.

She wasn't sure why she did it. One second she was looking at the box of cheap junk, scoffing, and the next she was slipping one into her pocket and sneaking off to her room to look it over. She lay on her back on her bed, holding the glass sphere up to the light, rolling it this way and that between her fingers until the glitter caught the light and sparkled.

The keychain was pretty, she decided. Pretty, but still cheap.

Kagome clutched the marble to her chest, fingers clamped over her heart, jewel pressing painfully into her skin.

The jewel against her breast was no more than a bauble.

The _real_ jewel lying beneath, lodged some unknowable place inside her, was no mere ornament, but honestly? She probably wanted the Shikon no Tama even less than she wanted the stupid, useless marble in her hand.

* * *

_It's possible her reluctance to see the real jewel will become clearer once Daughters of Destiny is over, but… maybe I wrote this too early. Oh well. We'll see._

_Also the keychains in this were present in the very first Inuyasha manga chapter! Am reading the manga in my spare time._


	18. Misfit

**Day 18: "Misfit" [370 words]**

* * *

Although their friendship had progressed over the months, and although Minato now considered himself a part of the team, he could not ignore that certain gulf that stretched indelibly between himself and his fellow Senshi.

Not for lack of trying on his part, and certainly not for lack of trying on the parts of Usagi, Ami, Rei, and Makoto. They included him in every outing, just as they had today, and they always did their best to make him feel welcome. Makoto had even taken up kickboxing, attending a gym with Minato twice a week to work out and hone their combative edge. He counted their friendship as genuine enough.

But as he watched Usagi and the others walk ahead of him down the sidewalk, heads bowed together as they giggled and talked, he wondered if he would ever feel as if he truly 'fit in.'

Fitting in had never concerned him in his old life. He had been (still was, he thought) a man of self-assurance, not one concerned with popularity or fame. Minato had two close friends and his wife, and his squadron, though 'duty' came before 'friendship' where they were concerned. Greta and two friends were all the relationships he'd needed, and all he'd sought out over the course of his thirty-something years.

Somehow, in his scant 13 years as Minato, he'd managed to make more than twice that many.

A gold flash caught his eye as Usagi turned, dropping back from Ami, Rei and Makoto's small pack. Her smile was somehow brighter than her hair and luminous eyes, gleaming like a pearl as she looped her arm through his.

"You know we're lucky to have you on our team, right?" she told him, brightly.

And Minato smiled. "Thank you, Usagi."

"Any time." She thrust her nose into the air, pasting on her snottiest, most endearing pout. "Now c'mon. Let's get to the Game Crown Center so you can help me make that meanie Mamoru jealous."

Minato smiled, tried his best to look a gentleman, and helped her do just that.

Minato often felt like a misfit.

He got the sense he wouldn't always feel as such, if Usagi's smile was anything to go by.

* * *

_Pretty much a direct companion to the prompt "weak" from last years anthology, "Written in Ink." Thanks!_


	19. Sling

_Set when NQK and Yusuke were little kids._

* * *

**Day 19: "Sling" [390 words]**

* * *

With feet spread wide for balance upon the roof of my parents' home, I declared, "I'm telling you, it's not gonna work!"

And Yusuke, predictably, fired back: "You're only saying that because you're jealous that you didn't think of it first!"

He was wrong, of course. I was the exact opposite of jealous of his idea to tie a length of rope to the tree behind my house. The tree on the other side of the drainage ditch at least thirty feet away, to be precise. He'd shimmied up the tree to lash the rope to a branch, then had shimmied up my parents' drainpipe to tie the other end to a gutter on the highest eave of our house. He hadn't even pulled the damn rope taut when he'd tied it off, and I hadn't found him in time to give him zipline-creating-pointers.

Because, oh yeah, that's what the rope was for. _Damn kid thought he'd made a fuckin' zipline!_

I knew from experience that ziplines needed to be taut, sloped at a gentle angle, and properly tethered to work properly. (Not to mention weight-tested!) But I'd found the kid too late to say that. I'd just heard a thump from inside my room and had found him draping a t-shirt over the rope to use as a handhold. No matter what warnings I shouted at him as I scrambled from my window, he shrugged them off and flipped me the bird.

"All right," he said, standing on his tiptoes as he grabbed the shirt suspended on the line above his head. "Here I go!"

I covered my face with my hands. "Oh god, I can't watch."

But I did watch, albeit through my fingers. I watched as he rocked back and forth, back and forth on his heels, then took a running leap as he screamed a war cry and tried to slide down the rope toward the tree.

The rope came untied immediately, and Yusuke hit the ground with a horrible, meaty thud and the distinct pop of a shoulder coming out of its socket—one that preceded him wearing his arm in a sling for at least a month.

It was a valuable lesson learned, though, because you'd better believe the next time I told him to knock it off when he tried something stupid, he _listened_.

* * *

_Inspired by my boyfriend, who attempted EXACTLY THE ABOVE when he was a kid. Thanks, boyfriend, for the inspiration._


	20. Tread

**Day 20: "Tread" [600]**

* * *

Far behind us, Kagome panted, black bangs mired tight against her forehead with sweat. "Can we please slow down!?" she called up to Minato and me, but Minato just shook his head.

"No!" he barked over his shoulder, arms pumping like the pistons of a freight engine. His face wasn't even red, features perfectly composed despite the sweltering temperature and cloying humidity. "Brisk pace! Keep moving!"

"B-but—but I have _little legs!_" Kagome wailed.

Something in her voice evoked pity from Minato (or perhaps the sight of her struggling to keep up was simply enough to convince him that her request to slow down was, in fact, logical). He skidded to a halt and prompted me to do the same, and together we watched her as Kagome caught up, stopped, and bent over with hands on her knees to gulp air into her heaving lungs. A few passersby eyed her with concern, but the park was bustling that day, and no one approached to ask why two teenagers had been dragging a grade-schooler around on a midday run.

"I hate running," Kagome groaned when Minato advised her to stand upright, because bending over would make it even harder to breathe. "I _hate_ it!"

"Now, now," Minato chided, handing her a bottle of water from the bandolier on his belt. "Running is good for you."

"Just because it's good for me doesn't mean I have to like it." She stood, but only so she could chug half the bottle. Wiping her mouth with her shirttail, she said, "Case in point: brussel sprouts! Good for me, sure, but undeniably disgusting."

"I like Brussel sprouts," I offered.

"Me, too," Minato said.

"Then you _both_ suck!"

Minato clucked at her. "Not as much as it will suck to travel to the Feudal Era with suboptimal fitness levels."

"He's right," I said. "In time travel and in zombie invasions, cardio is key."

"But I've got _years_ till that happens!" Kagome pasted on a puppy-dog stare. "Can't I do it later?"

"I'd suggest being proactive." Minato nodded in my direction. "Captain, here, is a good example of what can happen when fate stops playing by the rules. Best to be prepared, in my estimation"

"It's true. I'd've been a sitting duck for the Saint Beast zombies if I hadn't been taking _aikido_." I took the water bottle from Kagome and, after taking a long drink, handed the empty bottle to Minato to clip onto his belt. Hopping from one foot to the other and back again, I grinned and said, "Now c'mon. Let's wear a little more tread off those shoes!"

Kagome only let out a long groan.

"I'll treat you to ice-cream afterwards."

She perked up immediately. "I am a running machine," she chirped, and she broke into a merry jog. "Let's go; daylight's a-wastin'!"

We watched her run off in silence, her small frame darting between the park's visitors with nimble precision. Impressive, what she was capable of with enough motivation. I shaded my eyes against the brilliant overhead sun as I admired her verve, though I lowered the hand when Minato chuckled. He was adjusting the sweatbands on his forehead and wrists, eyes trained on Kagome.

"Amazing, what you can accomplish with a well-placed bribe," he muttered. "Much more effective than my version of encouragement. I will have to adjust our training regimen to accommodate." His lips quirked. "Although ice cream might undo our efforts somewhat."

"Make it fro-yo, then," I said, and I chased after Kagome. "We're kids—let's live a little!"

Minato stared after us for a minute in silence.

Then he grinned, and began to jog.

* * *

_I can 1000% see Minato creating a Not-Quite-Boot-Camp for the Not Quites. Kagome is less than thrilled by this._

_Also my mom is a super runner and has this weird belt that she can clip all these little mini water bottles onto for proper weight distribution whilst running? I think Minato would have one. He's all about preparedness and efficiency like that._


	21. Treasure

**Day 21: "Treasure" [322 words]**

* * *

For Hiei it's a stone he lost many, untold years ago—a stone he should have long forgotten, but one that he cannot. Prying its memory free from his head is an ultimately futile struggle… but the importance of the memory fades when he meets a girl who can cry gems just as valuable as that which he has lost. Who she is to him he will never speak aloud.

For Kurama it's not an object, but a person. Although he will never tell her precisely what she means to him, he knows that he would do anything to protect her. _Anything_. Because that is what you do for the person you value most. It is a lesson he did not learn until she gave him the name Shuichi. He only hopes he will earn her gift of that name someday.

For Yusuke it might be the poster he won in a raffle, signed by all the members of his favorite wrestling league. Or maybe it's the only picture he has of his dad, the one where he's with Atsuko and smiling—but it's probably not that, because Yusuke never looks at it for long. Something you love shouldn't cause you pain. He'll look at the poster instead.

For Kuwabara, it's a book. He doesn't own it anymore, but he knows exactly where to find it, just as he knows exactly where it came from, if not the name of the one who gave it to him. A little girl gave it to him on a playground a long time ago, and he donated it to the library—sharing its science experiments with hundreds of other kids—to carry on her legacy. If he becomes a scientist, it will be because of her.

For Keiko, it's not a gem. It's not a book or a poster or a photograph. It's not even a person.

It isn't _a_ person, because it's four people.

She knows their names by heart.


	22. Ghost

_Set in chapter 27 of _Lucky Child. _It's when Yusuke is a ghost, during the arc where Kuwabara has to pass a test and not get into fights._

* * *

**Day 22: "Ghost" [200 words]**

* * *

"What do you think she means by that?" Yusuke wondered aloud to no one.

Yusuke's ghostly form floated cross-legged in the air, staring down at Keiko and Kuwabara with a frown. Keiko was helping Kuwabara to his feet as three thugs ran off into the dark sporting black eyes, injuries courtesy of Keiko herself. But fists and kicks weren't the only things she'd hurled their way, and the choicest of her insults had caught Yusuke's attention at once.

"Fuckin' _dickweasels_," she'd spat after them as they disappeared around a corner.

"Dickweasels," Yusuke repeated, exploring the word. "Do you think she means they've got, like, a rabid weasel where their dick should be? Or does she mean they have tiny little weasel dicks in their pants somewhere?" His face reddened as he snickered, chin tucking close to his chest. "Either way, I'm stealing that line. Fuckin' _dickweasels!_"

Botan, beside him, delivered a smack to the back of his head, ignoring when Yusuke released a hideous yowl—but privately she thought Yusuke's screechy yodel of anger sounded exactly like the noise a weasel might make if it suddenly became grafted to a backalley punk's junk, and she hid her face in her sleeve to indulge in a snicker of her own.

* * *

_I have NO ENERGY and don't really like this piece much, but I was skimming through LC for ideas and found the chapter where NQK saved Kuwabara from some punks, and she said my all-time favorite insult. Figured he'd latch onto that a bit and that Botan would get onto him for it. Anyway, thanks!_


	23. Ancient

Set after Botan starts staying at Yusuke's place after acquiring her third eye.

* * *

**Day 23: "Ancient" [700 words]**

* * *

Kei seemed distracted during lunch that day, and during class she remained uncharacteristically quiet. The walk home after school provided Kurama with the first private opportunity to ask Kei what was bothering her, but Kei did not immediately reply to his query. She simply stared straight ahead as they continued down the sidewalk, lips set in a thin line, hand clasped tight around the strap of her school bag. When he repeated the question, she heaved a sigh and scuffed her shoes against the pavement.

"It's stupid, but… Botan's staying with Yusuke—which is great, she needs a place to stay, and I'm happy she found a spot with him—but… I dunno." Kei shrugged. "Normally Yusuke and I hang out on Tuesdays, but he and Botan went to go check out this new karaoke place and they… well, they didn't invite me."

Her eyes skated to Kurama's face before darting away again. She did not keep speaking. Belatedly Kurama recognized the expression on her face—that metaphorically bruised glint in her bright eye. He expected her to keep speaking, because it did not sound like she was finished, but when she did not continue, Kurama cleared his throat.

"Did you ask to go with them?" he said.

"No, because I didn't know they were going." Another shrug. "Heard everything from Atsuko when I called wondering where the heck Yusuke was. I'd been waiting on him like an idiot, and he didn't even bother to call and tell me he was a no-show." Kei smiled thinly, looking sheepish—sheepish, but still hurt. "They're not obligated to ask me to go everywhere with them, but it would've been nice of them, so…"

An easy enough predicament to solve, Kurama thought, and he so said with a breezy smile, "I suppose you'll have to let them know that you'd like an invitation next time."

But his counsel only brought a frown to Kei's pinched face. "Yeah, but if I make them invite me, that's awkward," she said, looking like she'd tasted a sour lemon. "Do I even want to go if they only invited me because I asked?"

Her reply gave Kurama pause. Kei, normally logical to a fault, had dismissed his logic out of hand—which meant emotion was ruling her reaction. Not that she wasn't typically emotional (Kurama knew full well the extent of how emotional Kei could be), but she wasn't the type to dismiss his guidance so neatly, either. Normally she would at least give it some thought, but…

Realization dawned like a new day.

Kurama asked, "Are you looking for advice, or are you simply wishing to vent?"

"Advice," she said at once, but then she hesitated. "No. Venting. I want to vent." Kei sighed, hands flapping irritably. "Oh, hell, I dunno, Kurama. I'm just being a jerk, that's all." She tried to play it off with a laugh and an eye roll. "You'd think I'm too old to feel petty crap like this, but nooo-ooo…"

She walked down the sidewalk, shaking her head and tutting at herself, but in the set of her tight shoulders and bowed head, her emotions could be plainly read. Kei was upset that she had been excluded, and although she had admitted to knowing that Yusuke and Botan were not obligated to invite her anywhere, her heart overrode her head.

Not that Kurama, who prided himself on his ability to divorce reason from reaction, couldn't understand where she was coming from. It was obviously pleasant to receive a social invitation. In fact, the last time Kurama had heard Kei was planning on spending a Sunday with Kuwabara (for instance), Kurama had felt a pang of… not jealousy, he told himself. Kurama was above such petty sentiment. But something close to it had surged through him, and it had taken careful application of self-control to remain detached. Kei, it seemed, was less able to will herself into dismissing her emotional response. Kurama could not help but wonder if this was a product of humanity, or a product of her youth.

Because make no mistake: Kei _was_ young. Older than her peers, to be sure… but sometimes, and especially in moments like these, Kurama felt absolutely ancient in comparison.

* * *

_That whole "two of my friends didn't invite me when they did something fun and now I feel lonely" feeling is one I haven't entirely outgrown, even at my age; something tells me it's a universal feeling. Describing that emotion was a good jumping off point for discussing Kurama's internal age. In_ Lucky Child _I talk at length about how old NQK feels when hanging out with teenagers, but Kurama is older than her by a degree of hundreds, so I bet he feels even older than that. Felt like a good time to discuss both of these concepts. Age, like time, is rather relative…_


	24. Dizzy

**Day 24: "Dizzy" [190 words]**

* * *

Before me stretched one thousand paths.

Some twisted; some turned. Some were narrow; some were not. Some promised safety; others made no such vows. And still many more remained too inscrutable to analyze, roads stretching as long as and as unknowable as infinity.

All of the paths were possible.

None of them were guaranteed.

One path looked safest. The leaves upon it bore the marks of footsteps, its untroubled causeway trod by the girl who had come before. It was the most tempting of the paths. It was _her_ path. It swore to me safety, purpose and clarity, but it lacked the honesty of self—and the signpost at its onset did not bear my name.

The path that bore my name on its post—letters long faded; taste still clear—disappeared under the shadows of a vast bramble. But the shadows were honest ones, comforting somehow. It could promise nothing more than adventure, and that it was not _her_ path… but was it mine to claim?

These two paths were few among thousands.

All of the paths in this dizzying array were possible.

In the end, I could only walk a single one.

* * *

_My uncle made me memorize "The Road Not Taken" (Robert Frost) as a child. I thought about it today. This happened. _


	25. Tasty

**Day 25: "Tasty"**

* * *

When home was in Texas, home tasted like chicken fried steak and Grandmother's handmade poppy seed kolaches. It tasted like my Nana's soft oven-baked bread smeared with jam; it tasted like the black pepper and rock salt with which she crusted the Christmas prime rib, sweet like the pomegranates that grew wild by the . Cactus jelly, shortbread with cream, spaghetti with the sweet sauce my mom made from scratch—these were the tastes I called home.

When I made a home of my own, its taste shifted to tofu and roasted vegetables, quinoa and black tea, hand-tossed pizza dough left to rise in a warming tray. Baked salmon (Tom's favorite), hummus smeared on toast, sunflower butter, spiced vegetable broth with rice noodles—there were the tastes I came to appreciate, their scents beckoning me to the apartments I called my own.

But that home shattered and reshaped into the Yukimura household, scents and tastes shifting as fast as the car that had flipped me into death and life reborn. Warm ramen and salted onigiri; fragrant matcha and soft mochi; mandarin oranges peeled around a kotatsu, oils perfuming the air. Some of these flavors were familiar, echoes of the past morphed into something new. Far more were simply foreign, slowly melding into the taste of home over the many-coursed banquet of passing years.

Which menu was the most delicious? I couldn't say. But I ate heartily of what this new life of mine chose to offer, knowing that at any moment, it had the capacity to change and vanish—untasted.

* * *

_Home was on my mind today… because today I bought a house! Feels surreal. Time to find out what flavors I'll fill it with._


	26. Dark

**Day 26: "Dark"**

* * *

It was three in the morning on October 31 when I heard a thump downstairs loud enough to wake the dead—and loud enough to wake me, too, from a deep and dreamless sleep. I lay staring at the red numbers of my alarm clock on my desk with mouth dry from confusion and fear, wondering if I had dreamed the sound as my heart beat a fierce tattoo inside my chest. But soon my heart slowed, heavy lids falling shut as one minute turned to ten, silence reigning, mind tumbling down the dark tunnel of rest as sleep's curtain fell over me once again...

That tranquility shattered when a metallic, hollow _bang!_ sounded from downstairs.

I was out of bed and on my feet in half a second, adrenaline singing in my veins as I crept toward my bedroom door. No sound came from my parents' bedroom down the hall, but noise echoed up the stairs from our home's first floor: small scuffs, more metallic sounds, a rustle and a thud. I stood at the top of the stairs for at least a minute, one that felt like a year as my mind raced through the realm of dreadful possibility. Was it a burglar, a demon, another shadow-monster sent by Sensui? Did it mean me harm? Or (worse yet) did it mean my _parents_ harm?

The thought sent a chill down my spine, and on reflex I grabbed the broom leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs. One by one I descended the steps, putting my weight on the parts of the stairs I knew wouldn't creak beneath me. Breath held, broom held even tighter still, I tiptoed toward the sounds until I stood in my kitchen doorway, broom held high to strike. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and pressed my hand flat in the middle of the door. I waited in that position until I heard another sound—a wet sound, a gurgle some bloodthirsty beast might make when devouring its still-quivering meal—and then I pushed the door inward on its well-oiled hinge.

There, against the back wall by the stove, stood a shadow. A _dark_ shadow, deeper than all the other shadows in the nearly pitch-black kitchen. It hunched over something, those meaty slurping noises piercing the gloom, back hunched and shaking as it shoveled something down its throat. Light glinted as a thin ribbon of something, of gut or meat or sinew, disappeared into what could only be a hungry, many-toothed mouth.

A chill ran up my back, and a single name echoed through my head:

_Sorei_.

I had let my cat sleep inside tonight, hadn't I? And now this figure, this unknown, abominable apparition, was eating—

My hand slapped the wall, right atop the light switch I had flipped a million times or more, and the dark fled under the harsh burst of overhead illumination. I darted forward with a war cry as my eyes watered and stung, heading for the thing that was eating my cat with the fires of rage burning as bright as the scarlet eyes that had swung around to meet my own—

Wait. Scarlet eyes?

The black-clad figure's eyes were a very familiar color. So was his black cloak, and his white scarf, and the blue-black hair jutting from his head. The color of the bowl in his hands was familiar, too, as were the off-white noodles hanging in ribbons from his scowling mouth.

So, the unknown apparition was neither unknown nor eating my cat, after all.

It was just Hiei, bent over the bowl of leftover ramen he'd been noisily slurping in the dark.

My hands relaxed, almost dropping the broom in shock, but then I clutched it tight and raised it high again. "Get _out!_" I shrieked, embarrassment coloring my cheeks as I shoved the head of the broom at him. He dropped the bowl and darted around me toward the door, and when I shoved the broom at him again, he pulled back his lips and _hissed_. He actually hissed at me! Undeterred, I shoved the broom at him a few more times and chased him out the door into the night, yelling that he should never do that again because he had scared me half to death and he would knock next time like a regular goddamn person, I _swear!_

It was freakin' Halloween, after all—and the witching hour, at that. Even my damn cat had better manners than that!

* * *

_Just a bit of Halloween silliness._


	27. Coat

**Day 27: "Coat" [550 words]**

* * *

Kagome had barely even begun to shiver when Minato shrugged out of his jacket and said, "Here. Take my coat."

"What a gentleman. Gimme," she said, all but snatching it from him so she could bury herself within its warm bulk. But soon she blinked and scowled at him, though she did not let go of the coat. "Wait. Aren't _you_ cold now?"

"I'll be fine." Minato surveyed the dead quiet shop around us with one blond brow askew. "It's what we get for eating frozen yogurt in January, I suppose."

Indeed, the rest of the population appeared to have gotten the memo that eating frozen yogurt during an ice storm was probably not the best idea. The only person besides us in the pastel eatery was the shopkeeper, who read a magazine behind the counter while soft piano music filtered through the overhead speaker system. Although we had chosen to eat our treats inside during our weekly Not-Quite Meeting, the cold from the snow falling in billowing gouts beyond the front windows had leaked in through the glass, chilling the air in the tiled room to frigid temperatures and limning the panes with frost. No wonder Kagome had been shivering.

And Minato's jacket had barely helped her warm up, if her chattering teeth were any indication. "C-can't we j-just eat r-ramen at y-your place, Ee-y-yore?" she said, dropping her full fro-yo cup to the table so she could chafe her arms. "P-please?"

"I'd like to keep you both away from Yusuke if I can help it," I said, offering an apologetic smile. "And I'd like to keep you, Tigger, away from Kurama if he stops by."

"V-valid argument," she grumbled, although she didn't look happy about it. "N-no r-ramen. D-damn."

"I know a crepe place nearby if that sounds preferable," Minato said.

No need to tell Kagome twice; she was on her feet before he'd even finished speaking, and with a cry of "L-lead the w-way!" she headed for the door. Minato and I stood at a slower pace, gathering our things and disposing of trash as Kagome stood by the door, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation.

"You're into crepes?" I said, catching Minato's eye. "Never would've guessed."

I expected him to say something about being a man of many and varied tastes, or something about keeping me on my toes—a mild quip, good-natured and breezy. The kind Minato always threw around with his disarming sense of humor.

But Minato neither said nor did any of these things. He only glanced at me, and a tight smile crossed his face, blue eyes flinty as he turned from me and headed for the door. Internally I wondered what that could possibly mean, but Kagome called out that I needed to hurry my ass up so we could get somewhere warm. I resolved to ask Minato about it later, after he led us to our next destination—but the wind picked up as soon as we stepped outside, and what should've been a five minute journey turned into a trek that lasted the better portion of an hour.

Truly, I did intend to follow up with him about that tight and humorless smile.

But by the time we reached the creperie, I had forgotten all about it.

* * *

"_What gives" is that Minato has made friends with Usagi and the other Scouts already, and that crepe shop is Usagi's favorite… but he hasn't told the Scouts that he's Sailor V and he hasn't told the Not-Quites that he's jumped the gun on his canon and met the Scouts already. Basically Minato has many secrets, and for all the strides in their friendship that they've made, Minato is way less forthcoming than either NQKeiko or NQKagome realizes…_


	28. Ride

**Day 28: "Ride" [250 words]**

* * *

Dad bought a truck when I was about seven years old, and I hated the thing on sight.

It wasn't an evil truck or anything; no spirits possessed its chipped bumper or fogged headlights. It was just a truck of Japanese make, small to accommodate our narrow roads. He'd purchased it to make deliveries just a few weeks after getting his license, and the day he proudly brought it home with a New Driver sticker already emblazoned on the back window, he piled Mom and I inside and took us around the block for a joyride.

The joyride ended in approximately half a block, when I succumbed to the first panic attack in Keiko's short life.

"You went too fast!" Mom scolded him as she dragged me kicking and screaming from the truck's cramped cab. "You scared her!" An accusation Dad met with protests and denials, because he'd barely cleared 20 kilometers per hour and had taken the turn out of the driveway with ponderous care. Neither suspected (nor had the information necessary to suspect) that the jolt and sway and clatter of the truck's metallic body had conjured inescapable memories of twisted metal, coppery blood and shattered glass. They just knew, from that day forward, that I did not like cars, and to not expect to keep my father company when he ran a delivery route at night.

It's like I said: The truck wasn't evil or anything. No spirits possessed its chipped bumper or fogged headlights. No—the only one possessed was _me_, and not by a ghost. I was possessed by a memory I could not shake, from a life that was no longer my own, and from a death that haunted me even after my life began anew.

* * *

_Fun fact about me: I experience PTS symptoms when I move too fast on open-aired transport (bikes, ATVs, heck, even a HORSE triggered it once). Have had it ever since the accident when I shattered my arm. Sometimes cars trigger symptoms, but that's a bit rarer. Figured the stress dying in a car wreck would bleed over into NQK's new life. I know from experience how tenacious PTS can be, and her first trip in a car would doubtless end poorly._


	29. Injured

**Day 29: Injured [700 words]**

* * *

Keiko's hair swirled to the left. Kuwabara didn't know what that meant, if it meant anything at all, but as he stared down at the crown of her head and the way her short hair lay along her scalp, he told himself to memorize this detail about her.

Keiko's hair swirled to the left. To the left. He'd never forget that as long as he lived.

But that wasn't the only thing about her head he noticed. Her hair swirled to the left, and just below the point where her hair's swirl was most noticeable, she bore a long gash across her scalp. A gash he was currently dabbing with cotton balls and iodine, liquid sinking into her dark hair with every dab.

"Ouch!" Keiko said when he pressed too hard. She flinched away, but Kuwabara doggedly followed her head with cotton balls outstretched.

"Sorry," he said. "Just hold still a minute, okay?"

"'Kay!" Keiko replied, but judging by the set of her jaw, she'd spat the words through her teeth.

She'd shown up on his doorstep earlier that night, a t-shirt balled up and pressed against her bleeding head like a soldier returning wounded from the battlefield. The bleeding had mostly stopped, and she needed helping cleaning the injury—said no one at her _aikido_ dojo would help her out because she "needed to learn a lesson about watching her back." Apparently her sensei was a hardass or something; Kuwabara wasn't sure. He just ushered her into his kitchen, hauled over a chair, and made her sit on the floor so he could fret over her injured head. Luckily he'd patched himself up enough times to know how to handle her request… one that she said he could _never_ reveal to Yusuke, who would no doubt make fun of her for screwing up.

He didn't tell her, but the fact that she trusted him to keep her secret was nice. Really nice. He was honored, actually, that she would choose him over anyone else—over Kurama, for instance. Just as an example. He wasn't glad that she'd picked him over Kurama specifically or anything. Nope. Not him.

Anyway.

Despite the warmth in his chest, Kuwabara couldn't help but tut at her. "Beats me why you still take fighting lessons."

"Gotta keep up with you, don't I?" she said, words tinged with the breeziest of laughs.

"But that's my point!" He leaned forward and around in his chair, looking into her face as best he could. "Keiko, I'm _strong!_ And Yusuke's even stronger, though don't you dare tell him I said that." He swallowed as she laughed. "Kurama and Hiei are strong, too."

"Yeah, I know. You're all amazing." She looked amused, though he wasn't sure why. "So?"

"So _we'll_ take care of the bad guys. You don't have to worry about stuff like that with us around!"

He wanted to add, "And especially not with me around." He wanted to also say, "I'd protect you with my life." But he didn't say either of those things, because just the thought of them turned his ears bright red.

And Keiko noticed. She laughed, called him sweet, and turned back around so he could see the left-handed swirl in her hair again. The swirl he'd vowed to never, ever forget.

"You never know," she said, words almost musical. "I had to beat up some bullies for you once, a long time ago." A bright and cheery smile, one she aimed over her shoulder right at him. "Maybe I'll have to do it again someday."

"Maybe," Kuwabara grumbled. "But I hope like hell you won't."

He meant that, of course. He always meant what he said, and when it came to Keiko, he'd never break a promise. He'd privately resolved to never, _ever_ give her a reason to worry over him, and that was a promise he took seriously indeed. So the next time he and Kurama had a training session, he worked his butt off, memories of a leftward hair-swirl and the gash across it giving him the fuel to carry on and push to new heights.

Hell, even Kurama was impressed with his progress.

He hoped Keiko would be, too.

* * *

_Hopeless crush is hopeless. I love Kuwabara so much. It feels good to contextualize his feelings a bit more through these shorts._

_Can't believe we're just two prompts away from the end. The final prompt is one I'm particularly excited for._


	30. Catch

**Day 30: Catch [725 words]**

* * *

I don't really remember how it came up, but eventually I gave Minato and Kagome copies of my manuscript to read.

They both knew I worked on it in my spare time. Writing it all out by hand was tough and time-consuming; they often found me scribbling away in a notebook when they arrived after me to one of our many social outings. I'd usually stuff the notebook into my bag with haste, but eventually I confessed the project I was working on, not to mention the fact that a certain famous author from the _Yu Yu Hakusho_ universe had given me notes and criticism to apply to the book. After that, I think Kagome may have nicked a copy of the project from me when I wasn't looking. Point is, eventually she and Minato both read the thing, and after I had finished applying Shogo's edits to it, Minato even used his supercomputer to research various agents and publishers I could submit it to.

But I never sent the book to any of them.

"Why not, though?" Kagome had said when the truth came out. (Damn my inability to lie convincingly!) "I liked your book! I'm sure some agent out there would, too!"

"It wasn't the next example of classic literature, of course," Minato said. "But…" I get the feeling he didn't realize how this could come across as insulting, but luckily I didn't take offense. He continued: "It was entertaining, which is what I enjoy in fiction. Why not at least attempt submitting?"

It was a tempting thought, to be sure. The goal of my previous life was to get published, and in this life, my ambitions hadn't really changed. Why not use the writing practice I'd gained in my old world to better my chances at publication in this one? Becoming a young, published author certainly sounded appealing to my pride. Was I being foolish for not jumping at the chance to send off my manuscript so early in this lifetime?

Withering under Minato's stern stare and Kagome's incensed glare, I only could mutter, "_Keiko_ wasn't an author at this age."

Neither of them said a word. Kagome, who had risen to her feet in the middle of the coffee shop, slowly lowered herself back into her seat.

"It's temping," I said. "It's really tempting. But…" My smile felt thin, even though I couldn't see it. "I'm tempted, but not so much that I'd tempt fate."

We didn't speak for some time. Minato sipped his coffee; Kagome nibbled on her slice of cinnamon cake. I stirred my tea in circles, watching the fragments of tea leaves swirl against the thin white china of my cup. Around us a dozen people murmured and spoke, spoons clinking against dishes, chairs scraping across the floor in the occasional staccato burst. We kept our eyes down, mostly. Sometimes Kagome sighed, and once she almost spoke… but in the end, we just sat there.

We all knew what I was getting at, even without saying it.

Minato broke the silence eventually. "It's ironic," he said, mouth hidden behind the lip of his mug, "that the things we earned—the things that we are _proud_ to have earned in our previous lives can cause us so much trouble in this one." The thickness of his smile matched my own. "More enterprising people would use our knowledge to gain advantages unfair, and to get ahead of our peers by leagues instead of leaps."

"What's that phrase?" Kagome concurred with a grimace. "The one where there's just no winning, even if you've got an advantage?"

"Catch 22," Minato said.

"Yeah. That." Her grimace turned into another of her long sighs. "We've got all this cool shit in our brains, but we can't use it." And then her sigh turned dramatic, one arm thrown over her face as if she'd fainted. "And to think we could make Google or something and get a billion bucks, but nooo-ooo! We gotta be responsible and act our parts!"

"No rule breaking for us," I said.

"Indeed," said Minato. He eyed Kagome sidelong. "Though I doubt that any of us knows how to code well enough to invent Google."

"We could at _least_ invest in its stock!" Kagome protested, and the conversation promptly devolved into a discussion of which stock options would most quickly turn each of us into a billionaire.

Neither one of them brought up the subject of my book again.

* * *

_Almost at the final prompt. Any guesses who will be its main focus?_

_ Hint: I've never written from their POV before._


	31. Ripe

_Set concurrently with the events of prompt #30 in this collection._

* * *

**Day 31: Ripe [666 words, LOL IT'S HALLOWEEN]**

* * *

Hiruko waited, and Hiruko watched.

He watched from afar, of course. He had his ways of seeing into places others could not glimpse. Dreams, for one, afforded him looks into the very souls of his chosen few. His transplants. His Not-Quites. He could walk seen or unseen through their sleeping heads, taking stock of their moods and mindsets as easily as one checks the forecast, and use that knowledge to further his many, hidden goals.

He could also look upon them more directly, if he chose to. And he did chose to, the day his chosen Not-Quite-Keiko met with Not-Quite-Kagome and Not-Quite-Minato at a coffee shop to talk.

Hiruko had been slightly unsettled when the two of his selected souls encountered one another. He had been likewise unsettled when Minato tracked them down, turning a duo into trio… but in the end, he had graciously allowed them to remain friends. They drew strength from one another, and that strength would give them the courage to carry onward.

It would also prove their undoing, if he read the signs correctly. And he very rarely read them wrongly, if he did say so himself.

It was with humor that he gave a snort when Not-Quite-Keiko met inquiries about her novel (the one she dreamed of so very often) with a frank dismissal. She would not publish it because _Keiko_ would not have published it, let alone have written it. Publishing her novel might tempt fate, she claimed. But it was ironic that she thought something so minor would accomplish something so major, especially in the presence of two souls who bore so much more potential than she did.

Much of Hiruko's success hinged upon Not-Quite-Keiko. More still rode upon her friends. He wondered what Keiko would feel if she knew she was, for lack of a better word, a test case. Hiruko had no intention of finding out. Something told him the results of that revelation would be… counterproductive.

But letting her continue on as-is rode counter to his ambitions, too.

Hiruko hadn't brought her out of death to just… exist, and Not-Quite-Keiko, for all her supposed bravery, had stayed largely on the path assigned to her. She made small forays off of it, to be sure, but she never strayed far. She played the part of Keiko with specificity. She was a good girl that way.

Good, and _infuriating_.

Ironic, that specificity. His reasons for choosing her hadn't been particularly defined. He chose her because of convenience, and because certain aspects of her life complemented his goals. Any other girl that possessed these qualities would have done just as well—but Hiruko wondered if, perhaps, he should have exerted more care when making his choice. If he were to be honest with himself, she had been something of a disappointment thus far, barely daring to breathe out of turn for fear of causing ripples.

And that just wouldn't do.

The girl was ripe for a little push in the right direction, it seemed. Perhaps he had been too hands-off for too long. Perhaps it was time he stepped in, impacted her directly. After all, it was imperative she break both form and the rules—not that she understood why he wanted so badly for her to forge her own path. Not that she _could_ understand, even if he told her all that he planned.

He was alone in his ambitions. Not like his Not-Quites, who had found each other against all odds and against his best intentions. Now that they had found each other, there was no way they could understand him… and that meant he could not count on them to do as he wished without proper incentive.

Incentive. A push. A gentle nudge in the right direction.

That was what Not-Quite-Keiko (and her friends, in time) would someday soon require. So Hiruko waited, and Hiruko watched—and when the time came, he resolved to push her off the path whether she liked it or not.

* * *

_WHAT THE WHAT, IT'S HIRUKO._

_Almost chickened out posting this, but couldn't resist. Halloween seems a good time to dive into the perspective of the most mysterious member of _Lucky Child's_ cast. And reader __**cestlavie**__ guessed this chapter might be from his POV, so this one's for them. They also reviewed this entire fic, so basically this collection is for them, too. XD Thank you so much for your support! You're amazing._

_And, of course, thanks go out to everyone who read this story over this course of October. Meant a lot to have your support and comments to read. Proud I kept this consistent and updated daily without working ahead, and it's because of you that I was able to. Thanks go out to all of these amazing people: cestlavie, YourHomeGirlJen, read a rainbow, EasilyAmused93, Kaiya Azure, SweetFoxGirl13, Kimimakku, disenchanted lover, tammywammy9, tequilamockinbur, marshmallow96, What Would Valery Do, IronDBZ, le-maru, LadyEllesmere, Ouca, SilverKitsune, anony, Riverling, riceberri, Convoluted Compassion, and lots of guests!_

_It was a fun month. Want to make this an annual thing, so on that note… see you in 2020 for the next Inktober challenge. Till we meet again, whether it's there or with _LC_ (which I hope to get back to updating this month!)._


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